On the last day of the young drivers test at the Marina Bay Circuit at Abu Dhabi, Red Bull youngster Jean-Eric Vergne remained on top of the time sheets. The Frenchman was faster than Sam Bird in the Mercedes GP car and Ferrari's Jules Bianchi.

While we're on the topic of testing equipment Ferari have their huge pitot array this year. It looks abit agricultural compared to the McLaren movable rake in 2010, but the array will capture more data simultaneously.

I disagree with scarbs about the strain gauge. The cable is very thick so a strain gauge at the nose would give an accurate representation of the load. Yes a thin cable would have more stretch along its length but it would be an easy calc to compensate for that.

Drag would also induce a force in the cable but again an easy calc to compensate for that.

However if the purpose is to see the relative variation in forces on the wing at different heights, then they would only be interested relative values, not absolute force, ie this position generates 10% more downforce than the baseline wing.

They need to know the forces to know how to build the wing to flex to the desired ride height.

I agree with scarbs that the wing is probably extra floppy so they can dial in various deflections by adjusting the tension in the cable.

Finally, the McLaren set up is much bulkier and I can believe it might have active adjustment under that hood. The RB seems too slimline, they'd need rockers linked to a mechanism inside the nose. Or perhaps a ram to move the anchorages up and down. Or a manual adjustement?

Intresting fact, the engine that Mirko Bortolotti used today was used by Pastor Maldanado used this year, and has already completed arround 2500km. CA325 completed Friday at Germany, Singapore & Japan. Also Rubens has also had that same engine in his rotation as well, with it taking part in the race in Korea and Friday at Japan. This engine has now had 2 re bus this year id recon.

It's a bit ironic that they had to use 9th engine for Maldonaldo. Sure they didn't espect this engine to run so long. It suggests that this was rather an exceptional good engine, and not all engines could do the same.

"Nigel Mansell is the only one you could see in the two mirrors at the same time". Ayrton Senna.

Its proably served its purpose with Maldanado, gottn a re build and then put int service with Rubens, then served its cource pretty quickly with him, then discontinued from service, and probably has had some life left in it that Cosworth wanted to use for testing and has been used for this.

What we dont know is if it was used last year for another team like Lotus, HRT or Virgin.

The engine manufacturers are dyeing to get different race engines of varying life to pull apart and check. Problem is that they are sealed by the FIA as long as the engine is still allocated for use. Everyone wants fresh engines, and of course has to follow the rules. By the time a team or engine manufacturer can check the engine they are at the end of their life or detonated.

The only way to check race engine wear/degradation during the season is to analyze the oil and its contents. They learn much, but not what they could if they could rebuild engines between track days like they used to.

Its frustrating to the engine guys, but these tests the seals are gone, and anything goes. Everyone wants to get so much data from so few KM. They can't just have an engine test day, it has to be done while they are running 10 other things in parallel.

Before I do anything I ask myself “Would an idiot do that?” And if the answer is yes, I do not do that thing. - Dwight Schrute

I read that Ferrari and Mercedes engineers can tell with a great degree of accuracy what the engine is doing just by taking oil samples.20 years ago you could have a guess with these samples but now every molecule is checked and documented. Certain metals being of higher content than the norm will indicate higher wear and therefore more prone to failure.

With the amount of miles these "forzen" engines have already achieved, these guys know exactly where they are with oil analysis. Right down to which one of the 20,000 components is about to fail!